RFP
A funder’s published call for applications, setting out what it will fund, who may apply, how much is available and by when. It is the private and state-sector counterpart of a federal NOFO, and it is the document a grant record is built from.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Request for proposals · RFA · Request for applications · Solicitation
In detail
The names vary by sector and mean much the same thing: RFP, RFA, solicitation, funding announcement, NOFA. Which word a funder uses says more about its habits than about the process.
What varies substantively is completeness. A federal notice follows a prescribed structure; a foundation RFP can be a web page with three paragraphs and no amount at all, which is why so many fields legitimately read Not stated.
Against a NOFO
A NOFO is the federal form of the same document, with a structure prescribed by guidance. An RFP has no prescribed structure. Both are what we extract a record from, and the difference in structure is the honest reason federal records are more complete here than foundation ones — not a difference in how hard we looked.
How GrantTrove stores it
- Every record links its RFP through `source_url`, and `last_verified_at` says when we last confirmed the page still said what the record says.
- `verify_method` records how that check was made, so "we read it" and "a feed told us" are distinguishable rather than both appearing as verification.
Common questions
Is an RFP the same as an RFA?
In practice, yes. The words vary by sector and the document does the same job.
Why are foundation records less complete?
Because foundation RFPs frequently publish less. The empty fields read Not stated rather than being filled in.
Do you rewrite the RFP?
No. We extract fields and link the document, and where wording matters we keep the wording.